We are in misery Hopes rise for end to rule of world's oldest president

Outside one of four casinos on the same street in Douala, the commercial centre of Cameroon, money changers and taxi drivers such as André Ouandji call out to potential clients.

- Eromo Egbejule

Outside one of four casinos on the same street in Douala, the commercial centre of Cameroon, money changers and taxi drivers such as André Ouandji call out to potential clients. Ouandji has worked in the area for three years but has not entered the casinos. He prefers to frequent his local betting shop.

Cameroon has the second-best performing economy in central Africa, but a third of its population live on the equivalent of £1.50 or less a day and 80% of workers are informally employed. Against this backdrop, gambling and betting have become increasingly popular.

"We stopped relying on the government for anything years ago," said Ouandji, who is 27.

Like many young Cameroonians, he is undecided about whether to vote in the presidential election this October. In a country where the median age is 18 and average life expectancy is 63, the overwhelming favourite to win is the 92-year-old incumbent, Paul Biya, president since 1982. He declared his run for another seven-year term on 13 July, ignoring calls to step aside from inside and outside the country.

"Together, there are no challenges we cannot meet," he wrote on X. "The best is still to come."

Biya's 43-year rule has been accompanied by a huge decline in voter turnout. The abstention rate in the 1992 presidential election - widely believed to have been stolen from the late opposition leader John Fru Ndi - was 19.6%. In the 2018 vote, it stood at 46.7%.

Serge (not his real name) is an 18-year-old geography student at the University of Douala. He said prioritising his economic future in a country of high unemployment and rampant nepotism was more important to him than voting.

"My dream was to be a lawyer but you need connections for jobs, your father needs to be placed somewhere, so I settled for being a teacher which is easier," he said.